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Over the centuries she had seen many horrific sights.
When the body washed up on the sand of the beach, she found that some things could still shock her.
She had only found the body because of the tell-tale sign of a nearby immortal, the buzz that alerted those like herself that a fight was not far away. But the sight of a man, still in uniform, and soaked from spending God knew how many nights in the water, with a plank of wood piercing his chest was not how she had expected the day to evolve.
The sword in her hand felt ridiculous under the circumstances.
He was unconscious when she pulled out the wood from his chest, and she thanked God for small mercies. They might be immortal, but they still felt pain, even if temporarily.
When he came to, nearly an hour later by her reckoning, the hole in his chest was completely gone, to the utter ruination of his shirt. She had sat a few feet away, waiting for the moment when he came to and could explain himself. If he could. The buzz of an immortal had been weaker than she was used to, and she wondered exactly how many years he had lived.
He sat up slowly, a look of bewilderment crossing his face as he looked out first to the ocean, then down at the hole in his shirt, then finally in her direction. She smiled mildly but didn't speak, waiting out his reaction.
He blinked once. Then a second time. Then he turned away.
Finally she spoke. "This is an odd spot for an Admiral in the Royal Navy to wash up, don't you think?"
He looked back at her in confusion.
"Your shirt might have been ruined, but your jacket displays your rank quite readily, sir," she added, letting amusement tinge her voice. "Tell me, should I have my blade at the ready?"
The look of confusion only deepened. "Your blade?"
She lifted the sword from where she had laid it out beside her. "Are you after my head?"
"Your head?"
Her amusement faded away into sympathy and she let the sword drop back to the sand. "You don't know, do you?"
"Know what?"
"Why you're alive."
The Admiral got to his feet and stumbled a few feet away in the opposite direction. He was unsteady on his feet - mostly from the shock of waking up after dying - and he didn't last long before he found himself sprawled out on the white sands.
He examined his shirt closely, inspecting the hole and feeling the unbroken skin. He didn't know what it all meant; she could see it in his eyes. "I was dead."
The words were soft, and spoken mostly to himself, but she replied to them anyway. "Yes, you were dead. Impaled and tossed into the ocean, I expect. Not the most glorious way for an Admiral to go, but certainly a great shock."
He looked at her like she was mad, and perhaps she was. "If I am dead, how am I here?"
She smiled, a sad little smile. "Because you're not dead." She picked herself up from where she sat and brushed the sand off her clothing. Dressed in male clothing - breeches, a shirt and tunic - with her long hair blowing in the breeze, she knew she cut a peculiar figure for the man before her. "What is your name, sir?" she asked him.
"James Norrington," he replied automatically, without even stopping to think. He looked as though he couldn't quite decide whether he was hallucinating, or whether he was in hell.
She walked over to him and extended a hand to help him up. "Come, Admiral Norrington. You could use some food and water, and I have something I need to tell you. It's a long story, and I think you may want to be in comfortable surroundings when I tell you."
Norrington looked at her offered hand as though he didn't quite know what to do with it. When he finally reached up to grab hold of it, she grasped his forearm and hauled him up with little effort. A foot taller, he looked down at her. "Who are you?" he asked.
"I have been many things, Admiral. I can be a friend. A teacher."
He frowned, and there was something in his serious look that made her stop and stare. He had seen many battles, fought many wars, and his eyes told the stories of his past. "No, I meant what is your name?"
She smiled once more. "I know. I have had many names, but at the moment I go by Samantha Morgan." She offered an arm to assist him, but he appeared to have regained most of his composure. "Come," she told him and beckoned for him to follow her back down the stretch of sand.
To her relief, he followed.
What she had to tell him would not be an easy thing to explain. She had believed her first teacher to have been insane when she had described it after her own first death. But it had to be done, if he wanted any chance of surviving once he left her little island.
She had never expected that she might have to explain the Game to someone.